An above-average entry into the Charlie Chan series.
This
version
is a remake of the 1931 Fox release "Charlie Chan
Carries On," a film
that
no longer exists. It opens in Charlie Chan's (Toler)
police office in
Honolulu,
where son number two, Jimmy (Yung), and son number
seven, Willy
(Layne),
are going through their father's mail to intercept a
bad report card
from
school. Soon Charlie enters his office and is about to
spank son number
seven for going through his mail, when Inspector Duff
(Shaw) of
Scotland
Yard comes in and saves him from the spanking. He
tells Charlie he's
working
on solving a string of strangler murders, and has
boarded incognito in
New York a cruise ship on a world tour run by Dr.
Sudermann (Lionel
Atwill).
When Charlie leaves the room to ask his police captain
permission to
work
with Duff he finds out that a Mr. Kenyon, a member of
the cruise party,
has been strangled in his hotel. Returning to his
office, he finds that
the strangler has also gotten to Duff. Charlie is
shaken that his good
friend is killed and especially since the attack took
place in his
office.
He says, "It's a bitter challenge to me." The police
captain gladly
assigns
him the case.

There's a ship full of suspects. The number one
suspect is
the nephew
of the wealthy man killed, Dick Kenyon (Lowery), who
stands to inherit
a fortune and is going out with Paula Drake
(Weaver)--she is someone
his
uncle thought was an adventuress, after his money.
Other suspects
include:
the cruise director, Dr. Sudermann, whose luggage
strap was used on the
victim. Professor Gordon (Leo G. Carroll), an
archeologist who should
know
better than to mistake the time of the Golden Age in
China for taking
place
during the Han dynasty. Fred Ross (Beddoe), a suitor
of wealthy
socialite
Susie Watson (Witherspoon), who has lots of cash but
no known
occupation.
A religiously fanatical couple, the Walters (Claire Du
Brey and Charles
Middleton), who see things from 'the beyond.' A very
nervous man, Mr.
Pendleton
(Mudie), who lied and did not tell the police Kenyon
was killed in his
bed and that he moved his body next-door back to
Kenyon's own room.

The strangler is disguised as a bearded bum, and now
in
order to
get him it becomes a question of figuring out the
motive for these
revenge
killings. With both the help and hindrance of Jimmy
Chan, Charlie
narrows
down the suspects. After the cruise ship goes through
the foggy night
it
reaches the San Francisco port and another two murders
are committed.
Charlie
gathers all the ship's passengers in the city morgue
and sets his
ingenious
trap by using the supposedly blinded widow (Kay
Linaker) of the first
victim
as bait. What made this Chan adventure fun was that
there were many
suspects,
making it a difficult case to solve.